Freaks Flock Together
by Agent Orange
Summary: The Bebop gang goes undercover at an institute for troubled families to catch a shrink with a shady past. Luckily, dysfunction isn't a stretch for them. Complete. Rated R for potty mouths.
1. A Day in the Life

A Day In The Life

__

I read the news today, oh boy.

About a lucky man who made the grade

Ed did not watch TV. Ed manipulated the remote control pretty much the way she did everything else in life, in frantic spurts. "Uh…Ed?" Spike asked her.

She was hanging upside down so that her legs were draped over the back of the couch and her head was resting where a normal person would put their ass. "Hmmmmm?" she responded, though she did not stop flicking the channels for one moment.

"You, uh, gonna pick something there, Ed?" Spike asked, trying to be patient.

"Nope."

Spike was not surprised by this response. "So, you're just gonna be flipping all day then?"

"Du-uh," she giggled. "If Ed stops, she'll miss something."

Spike mulled this over for a bit. It wasn't really all that bad of reasoning. He looked back at the TV then at Ed, and then lunged for the controller.

Ed shrieked and monkey rolled off the couch. "No fair! It's Ed's turn!" she proclaimed as she wiggled out of her larger opponent's awkward grasp. She leapt onto the table, which Faye happened to be sitting at, and began clicking from her new perch. It _was_ her turn and she felt the need to click on principle. 

Spike dove for her on the table and she swan dived off of it into a heap on the floor. Spike took this opportunity to tackle her and attempt to pry the thing from her iron grip. Through all of this Faye did not look up from her magazine and Ed did not stop changing channels. "You can have the controller, just pick something!" Spike growled through gritted teeth as he tried to remove her finger from the surf button. God, this kid was freakishly strong. He thought he was gonna need the Jaws of Life.

"Ed don't wanna!" she argued.

"Seriously! All the clicking is gonna make me have an epileptic fit! OWWW!" Spike howled. He yanked his hand back in pain as Ed made a bee line for the couch. "You bit me," he marveled as he looked at the crescent moon shape she stamped into his flesh. "She bit me," he turned to Faye as if he was tattling.

"Yep," Faye said without looking up from her article on the lost Karma Sutra. "She sure did."

Ed peeked her head up from over the couch and stuck her tounge out. She was still flipping.

"That's it," he declared as he made one final lunge for the couch. He body slammed into the back of it, which made the entire thing topple over. Ed had managed to dodge the incoming furniture but in the process lost her grip on the remote. It flew in a graceful arc across the lounge and landed with a soft thud on Ein's ribcage. He startled from his sleep with a whimper, looked at the remote, looked back at his two idiot roommates, and went back to sleep. Just not before he gave them a look that indicated he was sooooo above all of this.

"And in psychology news, Dr. Raymond Lessep is making waves with a new concept in family health. The Lessep Clinic of Well-Being was introduced last year as a sort of retreat for families to go when they feel they have no other option. Located in a remote, lushly vegetated compound north of Ganymede, the clinic is dedicated to helping family units work out their, um, issues. Here's what Dr. Lessep himself has to say…"

"Click!" Ed mimed pressing a button at the TV.

"Hold up, Ed," Faye finally looked up from her periodical. "I wanna see what this guy has to say."

Spike gave her a curious glance before making his way to the set to turn up the volume.

"…family is the glue that holds the fabric of society together. When things are harmonious in the home, all other things fall into place. But when things aren't, those other things can get in the way of fixing the situation. That's why my retreat is so important. It allows families to drown out the outside world and focus purely on each other."

The entire population of the room made a skeptical sort of huffing sound.

"The Lessep Clinic of Well-Being," the TV anchor grinned. "Putting the FUN back in Not DysFUNctional."

The crew stared at the TV for a second before Ed asked, "Can Ed have the remote back now?"

"Yeah," Spike got up and stretched. He had practically taken up roots on the couch anyway. He should probably consider allowing the blood flow to the other neglected parts of his body. "Knock yourself out."

He lit up a butt and hopped up on the table. "So what was that about?" he asked Faye.

"What was what about?"

"Your interest in Mr. It's OK to Cry's little family hug fest. You having abandonment issues or something?"

Faye glared at him, but it was a sort of lazy, I'm-just-fulfilling-my-quota kind of glare. "Hardly. That Lessep guy looked familiar. And not in the 12 Step Program capacity," she leaned her head forward and lit her own cigarette off Spike's.

"Care to be more specific?"

"He looked a lot like a bookie in this one casino I used to, uh…work."  


Spike's interest appeared to be mildly peaked. "Really. Do you think it is?"

"Could be. I mean, his hair was a different color and he had a beard and wore glasses. But his eyes looked the same. And he had the same nose. And the same voice."

"Ah. The old change my identity by sporting glasses trick," Spike leaned back a bit. "Nothing gets passed you, eh, Valentine?"

"Yeah, well," Faye got up from the table. "Lois Lane, I ain't," she smiled seductively before making her way towards Ed. "Ed, you wanna do something for me?"

Ed stopped clicking. "Hmmmm…maybe."

"You wanna dig some dirt up on that Lessep guy?"

Ed sprung to her feet and gave her a huge, sweeping salute. "Aye-aye, Faye-Faye!"

Faye raised an eyebrow. "That means yes, right?"

"Yep! Yep!" she practically barked as she ran to fetch Tomato.

In about 15 minutes, Ed, Faye, Spike and Ein were crowded around the monitor. Ein was only interested because Spike was eating some beef jerky and he wanted in. "Mr. Lessep Person got his degree at Jupiter Institute of Science and Technology!" Ed declared while speaking through an old toilet paper role. Spike promptly snatched it away from her and she stuck her tongue out at him for the second time that day. Spike stuck out his in return.

"Are you sure? I mean, could he have faked it?" Faye asked.

"Could have. JIST went bye-bye."

"Bye-bye how?" Spike asked.

"Bye-bye, blew up into teeny-tiny bits," Ed clarified as she brought up an old article. "Furnace went ka-blewie." She reached up and grabbed her toilet paper role back from Spike. "BOOM!" she yelled into the tube, which she strategically placed two inches from his face.

Spike just nodded. "So all the records burned up. Convenient."

"I'll say," Faye agreed. "Ed, do you think you can find anything on Joe Kahn?" Then she added, "He was the bookie."

"Yeah, we figured, Faye," Spike patted her head. 

She ignored him. In a few minutes, Ed had found a good amount of dirt on Kahn as well. "Kahn Person went ka-blewie two days after JIST. Car fire. FUBAR."

"FUBAR?" Faye asked.

"Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition!" Ed screamed into her makeshift megaphone.

"Ed," Spike scolded her but he was laughing. "Who told you that anyway?"

"Jet Person. Kinda fishy two things went ka-blewie like that, huh, Spike Person? What did Spike Person say before? Kinda…"

"Convenient."  


"Right! Conveeeeeeeniiiiiiiiieeeeeennnnnt," she grinned, happy to partake in the sleuthing. 

"So what do ya think, Faye?" Spike asked as he cracked his knuckles over his head.

"I dunno. There's no bounty out for either of them. But maybe we can get one, you know? If we sorta point out that this is kinda shady to ISSP or something, maybe they'll hire us. Like a private contract."

"Private contract," Spike whistled. "That's pretty highfalutin. Talk to Jet when he gets back, though. It's sooooooooo crazy…"

"It just might work, right," Faye rolled her eyes. "Well, if it does work, I would like the record to show it was my idea."

"No problem. We'll just blame you when we fuck up anyway," Spike shrugged as he tossed his last bit of jerky to the dog.

Jet was immediately interested in his cohort's extra curricular activities. "Joe fucking Kahn," he mused, staring at the picture. "That little prick took numbers for the entire eastern galaxy. The ISSP was after him for years."

"How come they never caught him?" Faye asked.

Jet shrugged. "He was good at covering the ol' paper trail," he said. "But mostly half of our guys were clients." Jet examined the picture a little more closely. "Still, there are a lot of guys who would love to bring him in. Good publicity, you know?"

"Well, then that's our angle," Spike suggested. "We dangle fame in front of some rookie cop's face while we rack in the fortune." 

"I dunno," Jet grumbled. "I mean I left ISSP half way because of this sort of bullshit. Now I'm gonna go back and perpetrate it? I'd feel like a hypocrite."  


Both of his comrades seemed unaffected by his inner turmoil. "Are you in this or not, Jet?" Faye pressed. "If you've got some honor thing going on that's fine but then I need to start working on Plan B."

Jet acquired a look on his face that neither bounty hunter could quite read. "Yeah…you know I'm in. But I'll have you know I am sacrificing a good part of my self-respect."

"Self respect can be easily bought back, my friend," Spike grinned. 


	2. Working Class Hero

Working Class Hero

__

There's room at the top they are telling you still  
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill  
If you want to be like the folks on the hill  
A working class hero is something to be  


Lieutenant Jay Nadek eyed the line up of unusual suspects before him. He was a little taken aback by The Black Dog's senior partners. When you had 'em all in a group they looked like carni folk or something. All mussed hair and ill-fitting clothing. It was ridiculous. He could never get away looking like these guys at ISSP. If one is to be successful, one must project an image of success. His dad used to say that. His dad maintained that was a Nadekism but Jay was pretty sure he got it from a movie or something. His father had a tendency to hear things in films or on TV and then mistake them for original thought, or in some cases, actual events.

Like this little scenario here. This was like something out of a movie. He was being hustled by thugs. Or kinda thugish looking people. The woman had a ball busting sort of air to her, but he was pretty sure he could take the skinny guy. What was he, like, 100 pounds? He thought bounty hunters were supposed to be tough.

"Joe Kahn," Nadek said in an important sort of way, trying to make it appear as if his little mental detour was actually deep and ponderous thought. "Teflon Kahn, they used to call him. They couldn't stick a charge."

"That was the Teflon Don, Nadek," Jet corrected him with amusement. "They nailed him like a century ago."

"Oh," Nadek said, dejected. "Did they make a movie about it?"

"Think so."

"Figures," he grumbled, as his father was the one to dub him Teflon Kahn. "Anyway, are you sure this is him? I can't be sending my guys over because of a hunch you have."

"Well, I'm not positive," Faye leaned forward, casually displaying her assets. "But I never forget a face." She locked eyes with the young cop and smiled in a way that single handedly set the woman's movement back 50 years. She was never one for equality anyway, not when it was so painfully obvious the women held all the strings.

Nadek giggled nervously and in a pitch not at all becoming to a man of his stature. "Be that as it may, Ms. Valentine," he tried to remain firm. "I can't just deploy a whole fleet of…"

"Nadek, I think you're missing the point," Jet cut him off. "We haven't come here to tattle on this guy. The bottom line is that we couldn't give a rat's ass if this guy winds up in jail or not. But there are people on this force who would care very much. This Kahn guy has burned a lot of officers, your father included."

Nadek looked away from him and Jet felt a pang of guilt he immediately suppressed. "I'm just saying that for the right price, you can make us care very much. Totally off the record."  


"But what if this turns out to be nothing? If…if it isn't him or it is him and he's turning over a new leaf?"

All three bounty hunters shot him a look that indicated he should pull his head out of his ass. "Ok, he probably isn't reformed. But there is no way I can take action without just cause. It's against protocol."

Jet snorted. "There's a lot of things that go on here that are against protocol. You want me to start listing them?"

"Mr. Black, are you threatening me?"

Spike let out a quick guffaw at this kid's unwavering naivete, and was quickly nailed in the ribs by his partner. He couldn't tell which one.

"No, Nadek. I'm just making an observation," Jet smiled. "Listen, I know how much it would mean to you to nail this guy and we're just offering our services. The beauty of bounty hunters is that we're cash on delivery. If it turns out to be nothing, we walk away. You don't owe us anything. If it does and we catch him, we'll make sure he's delivered to the proper authorities, mainly you."

"For a price."

"Everything's for a price, Nadek. Or do you do this line of work for free?"

Nadek blushed a bit. "All right, all right. And I'm only trusting you with this cause you knew my dad. You always seemed like a decent guy. Though I can't believe you left ISSP for this."

"Personally, I think our system makes a lot more sense," Jet shrugged. "Now. About that price we talked about earlier…"

"So what's the what with that kid's dad and Kahn?" Faye asked as they strolled out of the station.

"Nothing interesting," Jet shrugged and flicked his butt on the street. "His dad repeatedly tried to nail this guy and failed miserably every time. It was like a damn Roadrunner cartoon. He eventually got bumped down to meter maid and cross walks and stuff. He was like a living joke. Anyway, it should be easy money. I mean, what could this guy possibly be up to at some hippie ranch?"

"How are we gonna do this, anyway?" Spike asked as he and Faye silently fought over the rights to the last cig in the box. "I mean, we can't possibly go in as a family."

Jet cleared his throat, and the two younger hunters froze. "You can't be serious," Faye asked as she bent Spike's thumb back and liberated the cowboy killer from his hand.

"Well, the way I see it, we can get in by trying to pass as crazy people or people who are authorized to treat crazy people," Jet reasoned. No sooner then he had finished speaking, Spike whipped a pocketknife out from somewhere in his suit and snipped the end off Faye's cigarette. He then proceeded to light his half, without the filter, which seemed to annoy Faye since she was gypped on actual carcinogenic content.

"Yeah," Jet groaned. "I wonder which role we're better suited for?"

"Crazy people sure," Spike conceded. "But a family, Jet? No real family can be as screwed up as we are. They'll have us committed."

"You've obviously never attended a Black Family Christmas," Jet muttered under his breath. "Besides, I have undercover experience, Faye's a mistress of disguise, you…well. You're you but I think between the four of us we can fake it."

"Four?"

"I ain't leaving Ed on my ship by herself for that long. Are you nuts? Besides, we need a kid. If just the three of us went it would look like, kinky or something," Jet turned a bit red.

Spike shook his head. "Jet, that is going to be the least of our problems."

"Ok…how about Jet is the drunken dad, Spike is his live-in lover and I'm his neglected wife," Faye suggested. "Ed can be Jet's love child from a previous marriage."

"I'm not going to dignify that with a response," Spike muttered, though he was watching Ed grapple with the concept of shoes. The case required they make a group outing to the local Wal-mart for some more appropriate, average-suburban-wasteland type clothing. Spike thought they all looked like bigger freaks when they tried to blend in, but he knew their usual style was a bit too conspicuous for the proceedings. He was already hating every minute of this case. They had him in khaki's for crying out loud. He'd back out if the rest of them would let him. Though it wasn't like he had big plans for the weekend anyway.

"Well, Ed can't be mine," Faye protested. "I'm too young. I would have had her when I was 10."

"Actually, Faye, you're technically old enough to be Jet's mom," Spike pointed out.

Faye seemed unfazed. "Yes, but I don't look it," she said in her best I'm-worth-it voice.

"Ok, then how about we're all Jet's kids. Mom died in a terrible car accident, and we've all decided to live together to help raise Edward and help Jet work through his drinking problem," Spike contributed.

"You sound like you're pitching a bad sitcom," Faye laughed. "Four Is Enough."

"Why am I always drunk in these scenarios?" Jet pouted.

"The best tragic family stories always have a drunk dad," Spike grinned. "It's the rule."

"Well, if you're my kid, Spike, that makes me worse than Faye. I would have been 9 when I knocked your mom up."

"Wait, aren't you like 50 something?" Faye asked.

"I'M 36!!!" Jet screamed. "Jesus."

"Ok, seriously," Spike tapped a pencil on the table but he was chuckling. "We're all over the place. We gotta come up with a suitable lie, here." Ed suddenly wrapped her arm around Spike, grabbed his knife from his inside pocket, and ducked back down behind the table. "What the hell are you doing, Ed?" Spike asked without turning around.

Ed responded by singing the first verse of There's A Hole In the Bucket Dear Liza.

Spike shook his head. "Try not to stab yourself," he offered as advice before getting back to the task at hand. "Ok," he cracked his knuckles. "Faye, you and I are, um…married," he choked on the word. "Ed's our kid. We'll say your 30. This makes you a slut but not a scandalous slut."

"I am not going to pass for 30," she declared defiantly. Then added in a self-conscious fit of doubt, "Am I?"

Spike shrugged. "So you'll be a hot mom," he said casually, but the admission of Faye's hotness, no matter how flippant, was enough to shut her up. "And Jet, you can be my deadbeat older brother who's mooching off us."

"I'm mooching off you," Jet said wistfully. "That's a switch."

"Faye, our marriage is obviously on the rocks."

"Obviously."

"And Ed…" he glanced over at their fourth wheel and saw she had cut the toes out of her new sneakers.

"Much better," she sighed as her toes wiggled in their new freedom.

"Ed is…well. Ed. We'll say Faye was drinking while she was pregnant."

"Oh good," Jet said in relief. "That means I'm not the drunkard."

"No, you're just on crystal meth," Spike said with evil glee. He was actually sort of enjoying himself now. The case itself was going to be boring as hell but at least he found a reasonable way of entertaining himself.

"So what's your problem?" Faye asked. "You've seemed to assigned social disorders to everyone but yourself."

"I am a pillar of virtue," Spike declared. "The glue that holds this family together."

The rest of the crew, including Ein, glared at him. 

"We'll just say you can't get it up," Faye said coyly. She patted Spike's shoulder as she walked by. "Sweetie."


	3. I Used to Love Her

I Used To Love Her

__

I used to love her 

But I had to kill her

Had to put her six feet under

And I can still hear her complain

The admission into the Institute of Well-Being went smoother than anticipated. Spike had blurted out Brownstone when Jet asked the gang to come up with a last name, and no one really objected. He didn't know why, it just came to him. Ed quickly went to work punching out some fake ID's for everyone.

Jet decided he would be Chuck. He didn't know why either. He just thought it sounded honest. You trust people named Chuck. Good ol' Chuck Brownstone. The kinda guy who'd cut your mom's lawn for free. You know. When he wasn't doing crystal meth.

As for the rest of the kids, they predictably picked flashier names.

"Lee?" Faye questioned her hubby's choice in moniker.

Spike smiled. "Yeah. As in Bruce."

"What are you 14?"

"As if Scarlet is a conservative choice."

Faye puffed up a bit at the sound of her new name. "Frankly, I don't think enough people in this world are named Scarlet."

Ed chose the name Spot. No one bothered to argue.

In fact, the check in staff down at the Institute of Well-Being quickly learned that it was best not to argue with Ed when it was revealed her "suspicious package" did not contain weaponry of any sort, but a dog. A terrified and seemingly claustrophobic dog. There were no dogs allowed in IoWB. It detracted from the feeling of human one-ness. But Ed also made it clear that she only marginally qualified as human, growling maniacally if any of the security folk came within a two-foot radius of Ein.

"Do we need to sedate her?" the receptionist asked her "family," who had so far just watched all the goings on with horrified amusement.

"Uh, no," Jet shrugged. "Just let her keep the dog." Duh.

After much hushed discussion, it was agreed that Ein may stay as long as he does not for any reason leave the confines of their cabin. Ed was appeased, and the rest of the group wearily investigated their new quarters. The staff took the rest of their bags for inspection, however. They would be returned to them before the next morning. 

"Shot gun bed," Faye said casually as she strolled in and plopped down on the kinger that was obviously intended for the happy couple.

"You can't shot gun a bed," Spike argued.

"I just did," she ho-hummed as she inspected the pamphlet resting on her pillow. It was a listing of all the "courses" they would be taking in the next few days. She looked up to see the rest of her partners going over their own pamphlets with similar expressions of terror.

Spike whistled. "I say we get moving on this, like, now. Pin this Kahn guy against the wall, beat the info out of him and get the hell out," he spoke his plan with a certain amount of panic that didn't usually register in his voice. "I don't wanna do all this shit."

"Yeah, all right," Faye sighed. "And how are we gonna do that? Just go storming through the halls?"

"Why not?"

"Faye's right, Spike. Checking in was already a horror show. I mean, these people have the right to declare us mentally ill. We don't want to be fucking with that, you know? I think we should chill a bit. Don't want to draw attention to ourselves."

Ed took this moment to walk by on her hands, her feet wobbling precariously in the air. "From this day forth, Ed will be known only as…UPSIDE DOWN GIRL!" she declared. She then made a sharp turn towards the end table, picked a coin up with her feet, and proclaimed, "Upside Down Girl shall now purchase a sodaaaaaa!" She then proceeded to go down the hall on her hands to the vending machine. 

"Uh…I think drawing attention to ourselves is an inevitability," Spike observed. Ed paddled back in, drank her soda, and then joined Ein in the bathroom to sleep.

The three of them stared at each other for a second, and then back at the pamphlet. The first course would be an introduction to family dynamics. Suddenly, all three of them had the strangest feeling that they didn't really know the other two at all. Jet hit the light and they all immediately rolled over, not sleeping but pretending to.

The next morning, the Brownstones paused to admire themselves in the mirror. "We look kinda normal," Faye shrugged. She was wearing blue jeans, a long sleeve T-shirt and Keds. Her hair was tied back in a bandanna. "Do I look middle class enough?"

Spike and Jet both shrugged. "I have no idea," Spike admitted as he grappled with the collar on his Polo shirt. He looked like a tool. Screw that. He was the whole toolbox. He unbuttoned the buttons and untucked his shirt out of his pants before lighting up his fourth cigarette that morning. Normal people don't inhale four cancer sticks before nine o'clock.

"Good morning, everyone," a woman greeted them with a voice that was inhumanly cheery for this time of day. Her perkiness was repaid with some scattered grunts from the other families. "My name is Dr. Harlow. Before we begin, I would just like to ask if anyone has some questions or concerns?"

Spike's hand shot up. "Yeah. Where's this Lessep guy?"

His partners both shot him a look that asked him to please, please, please not be an ass. Ed was chewing on her own toenail and did not seem concerned.

"Dr. Lessep does not hold circle groups. However, he is on hand to…"

"Well, I wanna meet him. I mean, it's his name on the pamphlet, right? Don't we have the right to speak to him?"

"I can assure you, Mr. Brownstone, that every one of us are specially trained…"

"But I want to meet him. How do I know he's not a kook?" Spike stood up defiantly.

Spike was backed up by some other mutterings of the group. Dr. Harlow remained unfazed. "Mr. Brownstone, I detect a little skepticism. In order for this to work you must try to keep an open mind."

"Please," Faye suddenly sniffed, causing Spike to spin around on her sharply. "We practically had to hog tie him to get him to come. He could care less about the welfare of this family," she cooed, cranking Vulnerable Faye up to 11.

"Give me a break," Spike murmured under his breath. He was annoyed with the speed in which she went in for the kill more than anything else.

"Excuse me Mr. Brownstone?"

All eyes were now firmly on Spike. "Umm…nothing," he said quickly, plopping back into his seat. 

"He's always like this," Faye kept up, dabbing her eyes for effect. "When I told him about this program, do you know what he said?"

"What did he say, dear?" Harlow asked in a soothing tone of voice.

"This should be good," Spike muttered, earning him another a seething glare from Harlow.

"He said the only thing that could save this family was the sweet release of death."

The room reacted with an odd mix of gasps and knowing snickers. Spike bit his upper lip. So much for the Pillar of Virtue. Well, since he was already the husband form Hell he might as well just kill her. He had only spared her life previously on account of the mess, but they had housekeepers cleaning the room here. 

"Well, Mr. Brownstone, hopefully we can change your outlook, or at the very least, your self-destructive attitude. You see, in time, blah, blah, blah, blah…."

Spike was drowning her out entirely and was instead staring at the back of Faye's smug little head. He thought if maybe he concentrated hard enough, he could actually will her head to explode. He had seen it in a movie once. His half-assed attempts at psychokinetic mayhem were interrupted when he was hit in the forehead with a flying shoe.

He looked down to see Ed staring up at him sheepishly. "Spot don't like shoes either," she whispered. 

Spike sighed and put his finger to his lips in an attempt to get her to shut up. He looked around quickly but it seemed no one had noticed. It also seemed that the circle group had commenced. And then he did something he never figured he'd do. He listened.

It suddenly occurred to him that it was very strange listening to people who were actually living the lies they had tried to cook up for themselves earlier. He heard all their tales of addiction, adultery, and abuse. He particularly took interest in the kids. All of them were pissed off, mad as hell, etc. Almost all of them had the right. And almost all of them seemed to be more together then their fucked up, sorry excuses for parents who whined and complained about being unappreciated and disrespected between bong hits. Spike always thought there was something a little off in that whole Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother thing. The other Commandments were all right, he thought. He wasn't much of a follower but he can see the potential. But this whole idea of respecting someone who arbitrarily gave you life seemed ridiculous. How difficult was it to have sex? Not very, in his experience. Just about anyone can do it. So just cause Ma and Pa Yokel decided to hit the barn dance with a faulty condom, Little Bobby Joe has gotta put up with their shit for the rest of his life? Spike had never been so happy to be an orphan. He came and went as he pleased and never had to answer to anyone. Sometimes it was a little lonely, but it sure beat this crap. 

"Ok. Now it's time to meet the Brownstones," Harlow smiled suddenly at them and Spike snapped to attention. "Which one of you will be the spokesperson today?" she asked blithely. 

Spike and Jet immediately looked at Faye. "You seem to be on a roll today, Ms. Scarlet," Jet grinned. "Why don't you take the reigns?"

Faye smirked in evil triumph. "Well," she oozed. "My name is Scarlet. And that hairball with the person sticking out of it is my husband, Lee. We met at a rodeo in the summer of 2060. I was a nurse there and he was one of the clowns. He had gotten it hard in the ass and was sent into my care, and it was shortly after that he knocked me up." Faye took a moment to allow Jet to stop chortling in the background. "We had a shot gun wedding, literally, and soon his brother Chuck moved in."

"I mow lawns," Jet added.

Faye raised her eyebrows at him and then said, "And apparently he mows lawns. Though you wouldn't know it from all the money we get from him. Or should I say, lack of."

"I mow lawns for free. I'm just that kind of guy."

Faye almost lost it in that moment, but managed to revert back to a façade of total despair. "Soon after, our child was born. We named her…Spot."

"Spot…what an unusual name. Is that short for something?" Harlow asked. 

"Spotilla Loquacious Maria the Third!" Ed proclaimed.

Faye shrugged. "It's a family name. Anyway, since the rodeo accident, Lee hasn't worked a single day. He spends all of his time on the couch drinking whiskey and watching reruns. I tell him that we need money. That we can't afford to raise our daughter in this pigsty…"

"Oink! Oink!" Ed added for effect.

"But he just tells me to shut up. He's trying to watch his stories," Faye chose this time to melt down into a river of hysterical sobs, which prompted Ed to imitate her. Everyone was staring at Spike like he was the scum of the universe, which he found interesting, given all of their own tales of woe. What was that about glass houses and rocks?

"Do you have anything to add to that, Mr. Brownstone?" Harlow asked in what she had intended to be a gentle voice, but sounded a little harsh over the blubbering of the women.

"Not really, no," Spike shrugged. What the hell did he care what Ph.D. thought of him anyway?

"Are you sure? Because I'm really very interested in what you have to say," she prodded.

Again, all eyes were intently on Spike. He simply looked Harlow straight in the eye and said with a frightening evenness of voice, "Well, when I feel like talking, we'll be in business."

The doctor and her patient squared off for a moment in a mental showdown. Finally, Harlow relented without exactly surrendering. "Very well," she said tightly. "We'll simply move on to those with the courage to seek help."

"I mow lawns?" Faye asked Jet as she blew smoke rings up at the ceiling. "What was that about?"

"I dunno. I just felt my character would mow lawns," he said simply.

Faye giggled. "Your character? What are you workshopping or something?"

"You're one to talk. You were practically whoring for an Oscar out there," Jet smirked. "You really tugged the ol' heart strings." He was teasing her but he was actually quite impressed. She made up a totally ridiculous story on the spot, improvised like a pro, and managed to play the room like putty in her hands. One thing about Faye, she always managed to surprise him.

Faye gave a small bow for her performance and then looked over at Spike. He was sitting on the couch of the cabin with his nose in a magazine for a good hour. Faye would be lying if she said this didn't greatly disappoint her. She had expected Spike to come at her swinging after her little monologue in circle group but he barely said a word to her. She noticed he had been a little off since they got here. Whatever. Spike was never one to show all his cards and he certainly wasn't worth the gamble.

Ein suddenly barked from the bathroom and Jet poked his head in. "Got something Ed?"

Ed was sitting in the empty bathtub, Tomato balanced carefully on the edge. "Flooooooor plaaaaaaan," she sighed. Architecture always bored her. "Bebop-Bebop gonna snoop?"

Jet looked over her shoulder. "Hmmm…maybe," he said as he inspected the plan more closely. "I just wish I knew what we are looking for."

"Well, its lights out by 10," Faye suggested, looking over her pamphlet. "I figure by one, we'll pretty much have free range to investigate."

Jet nodded. "All right then. We go snooping at one. Got that Spike?"

"Hmmm?"

"I said, we're gonna go poke around at one."

"Oh. Ok."

Faye and Spike then proceeded to have an entirely silent conversation. She narrowed her eyes and shrugged her shoulders slightly, which was translated by Spike into, "What is your problem?"

Spike waved his hand as if he was shooing a fly. This meant "Nothing."

Faye repeated her previous gesture but in a more severe degree, which of course meant, "Are you sure?"

Spike put his magazine over his face and flipped her the bird, which meant, "Yes." 

And Harlow said they had trouble communicating.


	4. Honey Take a Whiff on Me

Honey Take a Whiff on Me

__

Just a little poke will give me ease

Strut your stuff long as you please

Sneaking around was pretty easy. There were a few guards here and there, but the crew just ducked into shadows or corridors. In fact, the guards didn't seem to be actively guarding anything, just milling around in a lazy strut. All three of them slunk their way into the service elevator and took it to the basement. Faye decided that the basement was a good place to look for mischief. Unfortunately, it was also a good place to store old furniture. Faye sighed, her disappointment audible. She even had her hand resting comfortably on the butt of her gun, obviously raring for some action.

Jet had to smile a little. "What did you expect to find, Faye? A neon sign that says Bad Guy Here?"

Faye shrugged. "I dunno. I guess I'm as anxious to get out of this place as Fluffy is," she said, speaking as if Fluffy himself wasn't right behind her. Spike grumbled something incomprehensible and took off to do some independent studying of the facilities. 

Faye draped her T-shirt back over the gun. Getting the weapons in the Institute wasn't that difficult either. Faye discovered early in her second life that security guards never, ever looked in the maxi pad box. Just one of the many reasons Jet and Spike were secretly grateful to have a spare woman around.

"Hey," Spike suddenly spoke up from down the hall. "Kitchen." 

Well, that was cheery news. The three of them bounded through the swinging doors with a visible spring to their step. Screw Bloody Eye and all the rest. As far as this group was concerned, food was the perfect drug, and even harder to come by. Their spirits came crashing down, however, when they saw someone had beaten them to the punch. 

"Ed, what the hell are you doing here?" Spike groaned. "And with Ein no less?"

Ed and the dog were poised gracefully on the steel kitchen counter, surrounded by an embarrassment of riches. Ed was already half way through a turkey leg, which she held with her toes, since her hand was busy shoveling chocolate cake into her mouth. Ein didn't even look up when they came in the room. He was enthralled by a particularly captivating honeyed ham. "Ed found floor plans, remember?" she said in a "duh" tone of voice. "Ed not stupid." 

Spike shook his head. "Is there any left?"

"Yep, yep!" she proclaimed. She directed them to the fridge with her turkey leg like an air traffic controller. 

The senior partners looked at each other and shrugged. Surely, the case could wait while they made up for six months of malnutrition. They all grabbed various food items and had what would be the Brownstone's first and last family picnic.

"You know…" Faye said as she smushed an egg salad sandwich into her mouth. "I can already feel my body rejecting this. It's like, These aren't bell peppers! Does not compute." Her stomach rumbled perfectly on cue. "See?"

Spike was not giving his body time to argue. He had already eaten an entire antipasto and was on the prowl for more. "Hey, what's in here?" he asked as he swung open the door to what looked like a walk in freezer. As a huge gust of cold air rushed through the kitchen, Ein suddenly looked up from his own meal and jumped down from the counter.

Everyone watched with curiosity as he sniffed carefully around the room, paused in front of the open freezer, and reluctantly went inside. "That's weird," Spike said as he watched the dog skit around nervously, pausing every few seconds to readjust. "You'd think he's never smelled beef before."

That was all it was. The freezer was a meat locker. It smelled pretty gross, but not unusual.

"Maybe it's not meat Ein smells," Ed said slowly, then sprung from the table and followed Ein around on her hands and knees, sniffing in all the same places.

The others watched in silence as they continued to munch absently on their newfound cud. They didn't look all that different from the cows that were hanging in that locker. Suddenly, Ein began growling at the far corner of the room. "What is it, Ein?" Ed cocked her head at him. Ein looked at her and then growled at the wall again.

Ed pressed her body up against the wall but nothing seemed unusual about it. It wasn't long before the rest of the gang was snooping around the locker also.

"You sure there's something up with this wall?" Faye asked Ein, though she realized how stupid that must have sounded, talking to the dog like that. 

Ein barked sharply in response, as if he resented being asked the question to begin with.

"Oh shit," Spike suddenly grumbled. They all spun to look at him. He was crouching in the opposite corner. "I'll be damned," he said softly, as he turned to reveal a piece of tile he had just accidentally kicked loose from the floor. Underneath it was an electronic keypad.

Ed squealed in delight as she attacked the pad with hacker gusto. She squinted at the display for a moment, muttered some obviously non-complimentary things in some foreign tongue, and eventually shouted, "A-ha!"

A-ha was an understatement. The wall Ein was in front of suddenly turned away to reveal a long dark corridor. They all stood staring at in shocked amazement as Ein whimpered and ran shaking behind Jet. Ed freaked and slammed the button to make it close again.

"Well…" Jet scratched his head. "That isn't right."

"I'd say that's about as good as a neon sign," Spike mused as he loaded his gun. "We goin' in?"

The others responded by loading their own weapons, and then looked to Ed to reopen the door. She looked at them with those huge eyes of hers and reluctantly did so. Something about this was making her very nervous, and most of it had to do with Ein's inexplicable fear. Always trust a dog's instinct. 

"Go back to the room," Jet told Ed, and she was more than happy to oblige. Ein whimpered his concern one more time before scampering off. "Just be on call if we need you," he hissed after her.

The three of them took a breath and Spike pressed the button to close the door. He ducked in just as it closed behind them, and then there was darkness.

"Shit," Faye muttered, not liking this at all. She pawed at the walls for a moment, trying to locate a light switch but came up empty handed. Well, one thing to be said about smokers, they were always good to have in a darkened corridor. They each flicked on their lighters and made their way cautiously down the hall, bumping in to each other every so often. 

Then all of a sudden, the ceiling disappeared. They didn't even see it as much as they felt it. There was just suddenly a lot more air around them. They all looked up to see that the ceiling didn't exactly disappear, as much as it let out into a huge warehouse. It was still relatively dark, but there was just a tiny amount of moonlight shining in from some unseen source. The warehouse itself seemed to be stocked with something, but what? There were just stacks of wooden crates no bigger than a shoe box, all identical in size, and as far as Jet could tell, weight. "What is all this?" Jet wondered aloud as he put the box back down. His question was answered when a shot suddenly rang out from somewhere behind him and burrowed itself two inches away from his head. As the bullet shattered the wooden crate, a huge cloud of white dust exploded in its wake. Jet sprang back in shock as Spike and Faye fired back in the general direction. There was a soft thud from somewhere above them, then silence. 

"Lucky shot," Spike said, impressed with himself. Or Faye. Whoever got him. They stood around in a circle for a second, guns raised though they really couldn't see anything. When all seemed quiet, Jet went to further investigate the contents of the box, as Spike attempted to see where their would be assassin was shooting from. Faye hung out in the middle, ready to back up whoever got shot at first.

Jet dabbed his thick finger in the powder and touched it lightly to his tongue. Hmm. Didn't seem to be poisonous. He dabbed it again and then almost chuckled. "It's coke," he said to Faye and then smiled. "How quaint."

Spike had no conceivable notion of where that guy could have possibly been. Adrenaline had seen the gunman more than any of the more practical senses. He slunk around the maze of boxes, his back to the wall like a spy in a B-movie. He was about to go see if Jet found anything when a single drop of blood splatted gently on the ground in front of him. Slowly, he looked up, and another little trickle of blood dotted his nose. He wondered briefly if that was good luck before flicking his lighter at the ceiling. He could barely make out the silhouette of a body hovering high above him. There was a catwalk circling the perimeter of the warehouse. Interesting.

Then he heard a very unsettling sound echo off the acoustically favorable warehouse. It was the sound of not one, but several guns clicking in anger. "GET DOWN!" he shouted somewhere over the boxes just as a several rounds exploded into the merchandise behind him. This set free a dense blanket of white powder that stung his eyes and made him cough. He fired a few above him but he could only make out vague shadows through the darkness and milky haze. Well, at least they can't see me either, he thought as he darted through the boxes in a quasi-squatting position. In fact, that might have been the best thing they had going for them.

He raced through the room firing his rounds not so much at the men surrounding them, but at the boxes closest to the top. He figured he might as well level the playing field. The air in the room was getting progressively heavier with drugs, and Spike had to pull his shirt up over his face to avoid getting conked out of his gourd. Suddenly, a body crashed to the floor mere inches in front of him. He tried to skid gracefully to a stop, found it impossible, and backtracked right into Faye. About a half-second later they noticed a beam of light setting its sight on them through the smog. "What the hell do we do?" Faye hissed, yanking Spike behind a box as she simultaneously fired three rounds in the air behind her. The lights they were using for targeting didn't seem to help them out much anyway. They just reflected off the dusty air in odd ways. In fact, they almost seemed to add to the confusion more than minimize it.

"You and Jet make a break for the door," Spike muttered. "Just make sure you fire at the boxes, understand? We can't possibly take 'em all out but we can blind 'em."

Faye let out a small yelping noise as she ducked out of the way of an errant bullet. "The blind shooting the blind," she hacked through her bandana. "Perfect," she lowered herself a couple more inches as Spike took a shot behind her. "What are you gonna do?"

"Me? Well, I'm gonna go the other way," he shrugged. "Find Jet. Go now."

"Spike…" she protested.

"GO!"

Faye sighed as she rocketed down the corridor, signaling Jet to follow her. She more or less did as she was told, until a few shots hit a little to close for home and she felt the need to take vengeance. In the process, she managed to take out a few overhead lights. She winced as she shielded herself from the glistening shards of glass. Well, at least now she knew there were lights in here, for future reference. "ED!" Jet screamed in the comm. "Open the door, Ed!"

"Ok, OK!!!" Ed screamed back.

A few moments later, a thin streak of light crept out in the distance, and the two cowboys pressed themselves to go faster, sliding through the door and immediately turning around to slam it shut. They didn't stop running until they had made it up the stairwell and into their room. "How…the…hell…is Spike…gonna get out of there?" Faye asked as she slunk to the floor, entirely out of breath.

Jet shrugged as he took a moment to get his bearings. "He'll figure it out," he said. "He always as a plan."

Spike had no idea how he was going to get out of there. While Jet and Faye were making their grand exit, he was busy doing what he did best: causing a diversion. He would bolt to one side of the room, firing the whole way, pause, and then run back in a different direction. The idea was to make it look like there were more of them then there actually were, a trick that could only possibly work when all willing parties couldn't see jack shit. It seemed to work well enough. He thought he saw the two of them get out all right. The problem was getting out himself. He looked up at the flurries of chemical ecstasy floating all around him. It looked kind of festive, actually. _Dashing through the blow_, he hummed to himself as he made another run across the room. _In a one horse open_…doof.

He stumbled and fell as a stray bullet ripped through his flesh. Red splattered feverishly on white as he hit the ground, trying his best not to inhale a good whiff. He immediately crept to a kneeling position, dragged his ass to a little nook in the merchandise and sat very still. The bullet had just grazed him, leaving a profusely bleeding gash in the side of abdomen, soaking his cotton kahki's to the bone. And he had only bought one pair. Just his luck.

He suddenly noticed it was very, very quiet. They probably figured they got him. Spike inhaled sharply as a fresh wave of pain washed over his body and passed, probably due to the nice gulp of cocaine he just snuffed down by mistake. On some whim he turned his head to the left, and saw a small opening in the wall no bigger than a laundry chute. Big enough. He dove down the chute on his back, in an attempt to minimize the blood trail he would no doubt leave, and found himself crash landing on a loading dock. So sooner then he hit dock, he heard a voice, so he rolled off the platform and onto the floor with a staggeringly painful thud. He weakly backed under the dock and waited to see who was there.

One of the security guards was talking to a non-uniformed man. "So who the hell do you think they were?"

"No idea, man. Kahn's gonna work on it tomorrow."

"Shit," the guard rubbed his head. "You don't think it was the feds."

"Please. If it were the feds they'd just hover around here for three years and the slap us with tax evasion. Nah, I think this was a street thing or somethin'. All I know is heads are gonna roll. You know how much shit we lost tonight?"

When Spike was certain he was alone, he feebly rose to a standing position and embarked on the long journey around the perimeter of the facility and in through an open window. As he stumbled through the hallway, he heard two people screaming at each other. He figured it was Jet and Faye. But as he rounded the corner, he saw a burly looking man with red eyes haul off and smack who appeared to be his wife. Spike froze a few inches in front of them.

The man eyes widened as he saw Spike's condition, but then narrowed again. "Move along, buddy," he warned.

Spike's leg snapped out like a whip and pinned the larger man by his neck against the wall. "You wanna hit something?" he asked him, and then pressed harder on the man's throat with his boot. The man made choked little gagging sounds as his eyes bugged out of his head. "Do ya?"

"No…" the man managed to croak out.

Spike swung his leg back in almost as quickly as he had swung it out. "Thought not," he sighed as he limped his way back to his room, the woman staring with a mixture of horror and awe as he shut the door behind him. 


	5. What's the Matter With Parents These Day...

What's The Matter With Parents These Days?

__

Mom and Dad, how'd ya get so rad?

When exactly did you get so hip?  
You're not supposed to like my bands.

Things I like you don't understand.  
So please put down that rum and coke

That's no behavior for old folks.  


No one in the room seemed particularly surprised that Spike had made it back or that he was shot up pretty good. "You lunkhead," Faye tsked as she examined his clothes. Jet was attempting to sew him up which was very difficult, considering he did not escape the melee completely sober. No one did, really, so Spike didn't mind the hack job so much. 

"You don't look much better," Spike pointed out, and he was right. The entire upper half of her body was covered in tiny little nicks and scratches from the light exploding. And all three of them were covered in about a couple hundred dollars worth of drugs. Faye started giggling for no good reason and then collapsed on her bed. 

"Bebop-Bebop is nuts, nuts, nuts!" Ed pointed out through a huge yawn. Spike and Jet looked at each other and laughed. When Ed called you nuts, you were in some serious shit. They laughed for about five minutes straight and then passed out.

The next day, the Brownstones trudged their way into circle group looking like zombie movie refugees. They were barely able to keep their eyes open and barely able to lift their feet off the ground. Spike was wearing a pair of Jet's pants, which were about two sizes too wide and one size too short. He also walked with a strange, lopsided little limp. Faye managed to cover most of her battle scars with makeup so she didn't look like she lost a fight with a lady Bic. She just looked strangely orange. Ed did her best to over compensate, marching into the room with her arms swinging wildly and her knees practically hitting her chin as she led her sorry posse to their seats. 

"OK…" Harlow said slowly as she watched her star pupils stumble into their chairs. "I trust everyone had a good nights sleep?"

Judging from the response of the room, it seemed the Brownstones weren't the only ones to have a decidedly long night. 

"All right then," Harlow smiled in what she thought was a warm way. "Let's dive right in then. Today we are going to discuss the dynamics between parental authorities and children."

Ed suddenly made a yelping sound for really no conceivable reason and then quickly covered her mouth. The Doctor Person was staring at her and she didn't like it at all. 

"You have anything to say, Spot?" Harlow asked her.

Ed shook her head without removing her hand. She looked like one third of the See No Evil monkeys. 

"Are you sure?"

She nodded, hand still firmly in place.

"Why don't you put your hand down, Spot? Let me see your pretty face?"

Ed looked to her friends for conformation and they all nodded. Slowly, she lowered her hand to reveal one of her trademark grins that took up over half of her face.

Harlow gasped a bit in spite of herself, shocked to see that a human mouth could actually stretch to such extremes. What was the mother on when she was carrying her, anyway? "Well, I think Spot just volunteered herself and her father for our first exercise this morning," she said as if she was a game show host awarding a consolation prize.

Spike's eyes got huge. "Exercise?"

"Yes. Why don't you two come to the center of the floor?"

Both Spike and Ed made their way slowly to the center, Ed once again assuming the identity of Upside Down Girl. "Spot, dear, why don't you stand on your feet like a good girl?" Harlow asked her.

"Spot is no more! Only Upside Down Girl!"  


Harlow looked at Spike expectantly. Spike just shrugged. "Eh. The blood'll rush to her head eventually."

As if on cue, Ed toppled over and then rolled to a sitting position. "Spot is back," she said, wobbling a bit from the dizziness.

Harlow shook her head. "Now let's do a little role-playing. Lee, you'll be the father…"

"Whew," Spike cut her off. "For a moment I thought you were gonna cast me against type."

Harlow narrowed her eyes. "You know Mr. Brownstone, sarcasm is the refuge of the weak."

"I'd like to call it the salvation of the extremely bored," Spike shot right back. They held another brief showdown with their eyes. It was getting to the point where mornings at circle group were more like high noon at the OK Coral. 

"Ok. Spot," Harlow said sharply, making it a point to deliberately turn away from Spike. "Let's pretend you have just broken something very valuable of your father's."

"Cigarettes!" she cried enthusiastically as the rest of the group chuckled. 

Harlow was about to object but the smug look on Lee's face told her it wasn't worth the trouble. "Fine. You smashed your dad's cigarettes. Go tell him," she said. "And Lee, I would like you to react as you normally would."

Ed shot up to a standing position and marched stiff legged over to Spike as if she were about to face a firing squad. "Father Person," she said with an air of great importance. "Spot has squished your cigarettes," she said in a long, sweeping bow. The she looked up at Harlow. "How was that?"

"Fine, Spot. Now, Lee, how would you react?"

"How would I react?"

"Yes. In a normal situation."

Spike shrugged and ambled over to where Faye was sitting. He reached into her jean pocket, which caused her to squeal in protest, and emerged with a pack of her own cigs. He walked back to his chair with them, sat down, and lit one up.

Harlow was about to point out that really was only a short term solution and did not in any way address the actions of the child, and also that there was no smoking, when she noticed Mrs. Brownstone leaving her seat from across the room. 

"Ass," Faye snapped, snatching the pack defiantly back from his hand. "That's my last pack."

Spike blew a puff of smoke in her face as he snatched them right back. "You mean my last pack. I bought 'em."

"You so did not. I bought it. I remember distinctly we were in that bar in TJ and I bought one off that transsexual hooker with the lazy eye," Faye huffed as the rest of the group gawked in voyeuristic glee.

"Yeah, and you asked to borrow five woolongs to do it cause you had just blown your money on a cock fight. Remember? You bet on the little black one with the gimp cause you felt that "it was due," Spike made air quotes. "What the hell was its name…"

"Keyzer Soze," Faye pouted the answer. "And that was the _last_ last time we were in TJ. I might have borrowed money from you _last_ last time but _last_ time I bought them myself."

"Please. It was last time. I lent you the money to buy these cigarettes therefore they are technically my property."

"Jet!" Faye stomped her foot for some support and then caught her faux pa. "I mean…Chuck! Whoever you are!"

Jet sighed. "It was last time," he admitted reluctantly. "Not _last_ last time."

"Ha!" Spike said in triumph.

Faye muttered a neat little string of profanity before huffing, "Whatever," and storming back into her seat.

There was a brief moment of silence, and then the entire room burst into thunderous applause. They even got a standing ovation from a few of the other therapy members.

"Whoa, whoa, WHOA!" Harlow waved her arms in the air to silence the group. "_That_ was a typical reaction?!?"

Jet nodded. "Yeah…that's pretty much how it would go," he sighed. 

"Yes!" Ed leapt up from her place on the floor. "Very, very lifelike!" She sprung herself into a headstand. "Upside Down Girl gives Mother and Father Persons two toes up!" 

Harlow shook her head in wonder. "You honestly feel that was an appropriate conversation to have in front of your daughter?" She looked at their blank stares and decided to rephrase her question. "Wait. Forget that. You honestly feel these are appropriate hobbies for parents to have? I mean, cock fights? Lazy eyed hookers? Jolly holidays in Tijuana?!?"

"She's used to it," Spike shrugged. He really couldn't see where she was going with this. Its not like they asked Ed to go along on these little excursions and the mere discussion of cock fights and whores wasn't anywhere near the level of dysfunction of these other families. And even if they did take her to see cock fights and whores. So what? What is so emotionally damaging to a child about pissed off chickens?

"She's used to it," Harlow repeated. "Have you ever considered once what kind of effect this is having on her?"

"Well, it's not like we're keeping her here. She can leave if she wants to," Spike said in his defense, and then realized exactly what he had just said. Most 13 year old girls couldn't pick up and leave if they wanted to. Sure, Ed could. She had joined up with them just as easily and she was clearly more than capable of taking care of herself. But not all families were like that. Most families had their kids captive by law. He suddenly realized how unfair that was.

Harlow was beside herself. "Mr. Brownstone," she said, her voice practically shaking. "A thirteen year old girl cannot simply pick up and leave if she wants to. You are a family. You're not just…just…roommates!"

Spike seemed slightly taken aback by that declaration. He looked quickly around the room. Once at his partners, and once at the others in the group. Finally, he shrugged and asked, "What's the difference?"

Harlow's face turned beet red, as if she was trying to contain a primal scream. It was in that moment that a security guard poked his head in the door. "Excuse me, Dr. Harlow. May we borrow Lee Brownstone for a minute?"

The room looked at Spike much in the same way a second grade class would regard a kid just called to the office. "I think Dr. Harlow would like nothing better than for you to borrow me," he said wryly. He winked at her once, just to rub it in a bit, and then walked out of the room. There were about nine other guards waiting for him as they quickly escorted him down the hall. "Can I ask where we're going?" 

"Dr. Lesseps is curious to meet you," one replied curtly and Spike grinned.

"Interesting. I'm curious to meet him too," he said as they practically tossed him into the office and slammed the door behind him.

A huge executive chair swiveled around to reveal the decidedly un-imposing form of Joe Kahn. He was only about 5'3, and the friendly beard and dainty spectacles made him more like an elf at the mall than a dangerous drug dealer. "Good afternoon, Mr. Brownstone," he said in a silky voice.

Spike laughed a bit. "Shouldn't you be stroking a white cat or something?"

"I heard there were some patients out past curfew last night," he said quickly, ignoring his remark.

"Imagine that."

"Would you know anything about that?"

"No, sir."

"You seem to be in a bit of pain, Mr. Brownstone," he observed casually. "I saw you wince a bit as you took your seat."

"Arthritis."

"Indeed. Would you mind lifting up your shirt then?"

"Dr. Lesseps, are you trying to seduce me?"

"Don't fuck with me, kid," the good doctor suddenly snarled. He had dropped his smooth operator demeanor and now spoke in a tone more becoming to a casino bookie. 

"Or what?" Spike shot back, leaning forward in his chair. "You can't do shit to me here. It'd be real bad publicity if patients disappear from your facilities. Don't think it won't get out."

"You're right," Kahn relented. "But at the same time, I can make it very difficult for you and your uh…family. And in much more legal and interesting ways. For instance, from what I've been hearing, you and the Little Mrs. haven't exactly been shining examples to your lovely daughter. It would be a shame if the state should be compelled to…intervene." He said the last word with such chilly malice that Spike had to make a conscious effort not to shudder.

"You're bluffing," he said, though he wasn't sure that he was.

"Hmm…well, I guess you could venture out of your room again, and we'll find out."

Spike narrowed his eyes, feeling a sharp sense of both rage and panic build in his throat. "You lay a hand on my uh…family," he said darkly. "And we'll play another little game of cause and effect."

The two men regarded each other for a moment, neither one doubting for a second the other was dangerous, but both entirely unaware of the other's true motives. "Good afternoon, Mr. Brownstone," Kahn repeated sharply as the door swung open and Spike was escorted roughly out of his office. 


	6. Don't Like the Drugs (But the Drugs Like...

Don't Like the Drugs (But the Drugs Like Me)

__

You and I are under-dosed 

and we're ready to fall   
Raised to be stupid, 

taught to be nothing at all 

"Fuck," was Jet's reaction to the day's events.

"Yeah," Spike muttered. "That sums it up nicely." The two men were seated on the balcony of their room, the doors shut behind them. No one else knew exactly the kind of trouble they were in, and they intended to keep it that way. A sheet of Plexiglas caged in the balcony itself, with only a small vent in the ceiling to allow for cigarette smoke. It was the only thing close to privacy an individual could find in this place. Not even the bathroom offered solace, with Ed and Ein camped out in there. "So what do we do?" Spike asked.

Jet looked completely beside himself. "I never even thought of that, you know? It was pretty stupid of us not to, when you think about it. I mean, even if we didn't pose a threat to this guy there was every reason in the world the state could have taken Ed."

"I dunno," Spike said a bit uneasily. "She seems happy with us. White picket fences aren't for everyone, you know."

"No, I guess not," Jet mused as he scratched his head. "But I ain't gonna risk selling her out. I mean if she's actually placed somewhere then that's it. She's stuck. Like you said, with us she's free to leave. It won't be like that if she's put somewhere. It'd be like…like prison to her."

"Hey, I don't wanna see that happen either," Spike sniffed. Just cause he didn't share every emotion he had didn't mean he went without them entirely. He stretched his body out in his chair, which tore at his stitches. "This whole thing is weird," he said through a wince. "I mean, there are plenty of other less elaborate and expensive fronts you can put up to ship drugs. Why would he bother with all of this?"

"I've been asking myself that since last night," Jet admitted. "It doesn't make any sense."

Just then, their thoughts were interrupted by a loud crashing noise and a very un-lady like "fuck." The guys looked at each other with a mixture of dread and amusement. "She's a delicate flower, isn't she?" Spike asked sardonically.

"Uh…boys?" Faye's muffled voice came from inside the room.

Jet leaned back in his chair and opened the sliding door a crack. "What'd you brake, woman?"

"Just get in here."

Spike and Jet entered the room to see the rest of their crew huddled around Spike's open suitcase. The suitcase itself wasn't all that remarkable, it was more the 18 oz. of cocaine inside of it. Jet looked at Spike questioningly. "It isn't mine," Spike's voice raised a defensive octave. "I don't know how that got there."

"I was trying to pull your suitcase off the shelf,' Faye explained. "To get my cigarettes back. I dropped it and it snapped open and this popped out." She picked up a think piece of black vinyl. "It snaps right in there. See?" she demonstrated. The piece of material did in fact snap into the bottom of Spike's suitcase, creating a hidden compartment. Everyone looked at each other as if they were all struck with the same idea at the same time, and then went off to get the rest of the suitcases. Sure enough, everyone's bag contained a similar easter egg. It wasn't long before the Bebop was sitting in an astonished circle around what was at the very least 15,000 woolongs worth of hard drugs. 

"They're using us as mules," Faye said quietly. "I can't believe it. I feel violated."

Spike groaned and laid back on the bed. That was most likely exactly what they were doing. That was probably what the loading dock was for, and that was almost definitely the actual reason for the luggage check. And they said they were going to confiscate possible illegal substances. That was the black fly in their Chardonnay. 

"They've got all of our info too," Jet mumbled, feeling very much like he had been had. There was no worse feeling in the world to a cop than the possibility someone was smarter than you. "Not like it matters with us, but still. I bet he's got lackeys all over the galaxy breaking in and stealing it back. It's genius when you think about it. If something goes wrong, what better patsy to take the fall than someone who just got out of family jail?"

"I say we walk," Spike said suddenly, without sitting up.

Faye stared blankly at his feet, the only thing on the bed visible from her angle. "What?" 

"I say we walk. This is ridiculous, for the money we're being paid. I have nothing against this guy. We don't have history here. The reward isn't worth the risk."

"What, has the coke not left your system yet?" Faye shrieked. "I mean, you are Spike Spiegel, aren't you? You'd risk your ass for free."

Yeah, _his_ ass. Ed's ass was another matter. She was just a kid. "I just think we should drop it, Faye," he said sternly, not sounding entirely unlike a father.

"Jet," Faye looked to him for the second time that day.

"I think…maybe, Spike has a point," he said sheepishly, dreading the emotional explosion that was soon to follow.

"WHAT?!?" 

Spike wrapped a pillow over his ears.

"Oh, this is rich. This is just fucking rich. Anytime you guys get a bounty it's all or nothing, winner takes all. Hey, let's blow up Main Street while we're at it, right? It's all in the line of duty! And then the one time _I_ get us a bounty, you bail!?! Fuck that! What, you're afraid to let me be a productive member of the group? Oh, gee! Can't let Faye do something right. WE MIGHT LOSE OUR LEVERAGE!!!"

"Are you finished?" Spike asked from underneath his pillow.

"No, I'm not finished!!! You all SUCK!!! There. Now I'm finished." She plopped down on the floor with her arms folded to prove just how finished she was.

"Wow. Go, Faye-Faye," Ed said in quiet awe. Faye smiled at her in thanks. 

"Faye, the fact remains that we are technically a team," Jet reasoned with her. "You don't have to hang around with us, you know. We can all leave at anytime but here we all are. So if we're gonna be a team, then we might as well not do it half-assed. The majority of us want to drop it. You drop it too or don't expect a place for you when we get back." He said the sentence simply, purposefully. Like he meant it. Faye looked away from him, hurt and anger glowing in her eyes. 

"Fine," she said in a low voice.

"Good. We leave tomorrow. I don't think I can take another circle group."


	7. She Was A Hotel Detective

Author's Notes: I'd just like to thank Scooby Doo for giving me the inspiration for this chapter. 

She Was a Hotel Detective

__

She's got her ear to the wall

And she's tapping the calls

You got a secret boy, forget about it.

Cause she's a hotel detective.

Spike had to take a whiz. Taking a nocturnal whiz was somewhat awkward at the Institute with Ed and Ein sleeping in the bathtub. Ed didn't really bother him. She was always sleeping and anything shy of the world ending couldn't wake that girl up. It was Ein. He'd always wake up. And he would always stare at Spike while he was peeing. Spike had no idea why this bothered him so much. It wasn't like Ein was gonna go run off and tell the other dogs something. Oh, hey, how's your owner hanging? A little low and to the left today. I'm gonna sniff your butt now.

Still, it freaked him out. But this evening, both of them were gone. He felt a stabbing throb of panic in his stomach that took him by surprise, until he turned around to see Faye's bed empty. Panic was quickly replaced by seething irritation. "Jet, wake up!" Spike snapped, turning the light on.

"Uh?" he choked, mid-snore. "What?"

"The women are gone."

There was a pause while Jet tried to get himself orientated. And then, "Fuuuuck."

"Ed, will you hurry it up?" Faye was doing something similar to a pee-pee dance outside a random guestroom. She figured a super hacker should be able to disable electronic key cards quicker.

"Shhh, Faye-Faye," Ed hushed her. "Takes time." She was attempting to digitally turn her own room key into a master one, and was making good progress. There was a soft beep, and the door popped open. Faye, Ed and Ein snuck quietly into the room.

"Ok, Ein," Faye whispered. "Start sniffing."

Ein looked at her, annoyed that he was being enlisted to help with her latest scheme. He made a canine equivalent of a sigh before sniffing around the room. He hated the smell of drugs. It was a cold, artificial, even metallic smell. It made him uneasy, as anything unnatural was prone to do. He directed them under the king size bed, which contained about six children. Faye pulled the suitcase out and was able to jimmy it open fairly quickly with a bobby pin. Sure enough, the same went for their suitcase as well. A hefty bag of drugs was packed neatly away in a secret compartment. A similar sweep of the other bags produced more of the same. Faye was quite pleased. It seemed she was really on to something here. Screw the guys. This was like…front page stuff. She might even get a little blurb on Big Shot. Wouldn't that chap Spike's ass. Her delusions of grandeur were interrupted however, when one of the half dozen kids began to stir. Faye watched in horror as the one child's midnight mutterings caused a chain reaction across the room. Panicking, she shoved the bags back under the bed and her partners into the closet, clamping her hand firmly over Ed's mouth. 

"Daaaad."

"What?"

"I had a bad dream." The child's complaint was met by a chorus of groggy mumbling from the rest of the room. It apparently wasn't the first time the child had a bad dream.

"Ugh. Shut up, Jackie," the father growled as he turned over. "You're too old for this shit."

"But it was really scary!"

"Go back to bed or I'll show you something to be really scared about."

The other children seemed to chirp their approval before they all drifted back to sleep. There was some brief sniffling, and it was quiet. Faye waited a few minutes, and then she and the others tip toed out of the room. No sooner then she clicked the door gently behind her than she heard footsteps in the hall. All three of them froze like deer in headlights for a moment until Faye got a hold of herself. They weren't going to make it to their own room in time, so she ushered Edward to the closest door across the hall. "Get us in, Ed," she whispered as she kept her eyes wearily on the corner. The footsteps echoed strangely in the empty hallways. Whoever was there could be a couple feet away or ready to turn the corner any second.

Ed had no trouble this time. A few seconds and they were in, pressed tightly against the door. It seemed mere seconds passed before someone knocked, the sound vibrating menacingly off Faye's skull. "Mr. Francis?" a deep voice boomed as it knocked again. The family began to stir.

Faye didn't even have to ask this time. Both the girl and the dog were already making swift beelines for the closet. Ed herself wasn't quite sure exactly why they needed to hide, but it was clear that they did and it was sort of fun. They shushed the door closed just as a female answered, "What?"

"There was a report of a disturbance a few minutes ago. I was just making sure everyone was accounted for."

Faye felt her heart thumping wildly in her chest. Of all days to start doing their job. Well, they did rise some suspicions with their adventure the other night. Spike was pretty tight lipped to her about what his secret pow-wow with Kahn was about but it couldn't have been good. It was entirely possible they had planned to do this anyway, with the intent of catching them in the act. She leaned back against the closet wall and to her great surprise, found a doorknob there. She spun around sharply on her toes. A connecting door. Excellent. She immediately went to work picking the lock, which being an ordinary old fashioned latch, didn't take long. She shoved it opened and the three of them escaped to the adjacent room. They froze for a moment, making sure their entrance didn't catch a light sleeper off guard. There were a few scattered snorts, but other than that, no one stirred. Faye indicated for the other two to stay put while she crept silently to the front door. She was never exactly a ballerina but she could be light on her feet if she needed to be. She opened their door a crack, and saw the guards had actually gone inside the other room, checking for missing heads. Or more accurately, extra heads. Fuck. They were going to have to get back, even if they had to do it one room at a time. She opened the door and waved her gang across the hall and into the next room, closing the door shut behind them just as the guard poked his head out. He narrowed his eyes. Something was not right.

Faye turned around to see a small girl staring at the three of them. She didn't look afraid exactly, but she didn't look thrilled to see them either. "Hi-hi!" Ed said in a freakishly loud whisper.

Faye put her finger to her lip. The other girl scrunched her face up. Faye, who was quite adept at reading when people were going to shoot, saw what was coming. The girl was about to call for her mom. Panicking, Faye snatched Ein up off the floor and thrust him into the little girl's arms. "See? Doggie," Faye whispered. The girl's face lit up. "That's a girl," Faye herded her back to her bed. "Play with doggie."

Knock, knock.

"Shit," Faye grabbed Ed's arm and dragged her into the closet.

"What about Ein?"

"Casualty of war, Ed," Faye snapped. "Couldn't be helped." She quickly popped the next door open and the two of them toppled into the next room. Faye was immediately up and peeking through the peephole. The guards were occupied with the other room. The coast was clear. She turned to tell Ed but she was already gone. 

"Um… excuse me?" 

Faye turned to see a housewife sitting up in bed and glaring at her with a confused expression.

"Uh…"

******

Ed was damned if she was gonna let some other little girl play with her dog. As soon as Faye had turned her back, Ed rolled back into the other room. She was hanging from her feet on the closet rod, a suit jacket wrapped around her as camouflage. She watched through the slotted door as the guards made their way around the room, discussing the situation with the half-conscious parents, one of whom was quite obviously growing a formidable hangover. Ein knew enough to hide and the girl seemed to know enough to let him. The dog burrowed himself deep in the girl's bed sheets and lay very still. "Have you seen anything out of the ordinary today, sweetie?" the guard asked her.

The girl shook her head, and the guard's attention drifted to the lump in her bed sheets. "What you got there, kiddo?"

"Teddy bear," she said shortly.

"Can I see it?"

"No."

"Oh, come on. Just a peek," he said as he went to lift up the sheets. The girl promptly bit the guard's hand, and the guard recoiled in shock. Ed nodded in approval. She actually was beginning to like this girl.

"Cynthia!" her father bellowed.

"No, it's OK," the guard said quickly. "I was over the line. Come on," he motioned to his cohort, obviously embarrased by the whole ordeal.

"You're gonna get it tomorrow," the dad mumbled, but it wasn't too long before he drifted off to sleep.

******

"Um…housekeeping," Faye said sweetly.

"It's one in the morning," the woman blinked, obviously confused. "Isn't it?"

"Yes. Well, I received special orders that I was to do a sort of midnight inspection," Faye rambled, watching the door out of the corner of her eye. Without Ed, she was screwed. Once she was in the hall, that was it. But she couldn't very well hang out here, either. Dammit, where was that girl?

"A midnight inspection…that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. I think I would like to talk to your supervisor…"

"Well, Ok, Ma'am. If you feel you need to," Faye prattled on, barely listening to herself. She was also very casually taking off one of her Keds. After rattling off some fake phone numbers and re-introducing herself as Yolanda, Faye opened the door a crack and chucked her shoe down the hall. It barreled squarely into an ashtray, spilling ash and gravel all over the floor. The guards immediately turned to investigate. Ah, Lady Tobacco, Faye thought. You never let me down. She took the opportunity to quickly scuttle into the laundry room.

"Fancy meeting you here, Miss Scarlett."

Faye whirled around to see Jet glaring at her, tapping his foot like a parent who just caught his daughter creeping in past curfew.

******

Meanwhile, Ed was making her move. She gracefully flipped herself down from the closet and pressed her body flat against the floor. Propelling herself with nothing but her feet, she slithered along the shag carpet effortlessly. She had made it to the window when she heard someone trying to get into the room. Knowing she would be caught on the floor, she shimmied quickly up the drapes and clung to the inside of the duster. She held her breath as whomever it was entered.

The person was being very, very quiet, as if this person wasn't supposed to be there either. She could hear him muttering something, but couldn't really make it out. She was too occupied with the sound of the cheap metal curtain rod buckling under her weight. "Uh…" Snap. "Oh."

Her tiny 80-pound frame came crashing down very loudly and very directly on top of the room's other intruder. The entire family shot up in bed shouting aggressive sounding vowel sounds until the father managed to get the light. Ed widened her eyes in shock as she recognized the swearing heap beneath her to be Spike Person. As for Spike Person himself, he wasn't nearly as surprised to discover that whatever had just attacked him from above was Ed.

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!??!?" the father roared as the mom shrieked offensively.

"Uh…" Spike mumbled, sheepishly getting up. "Is this Room 432?"

"No, asshole! It's room 433! Now get out of here before I kick your fucking ass!"

"Harold, is that necessary?" he wife asked him.

"Yes, it's necessary! A man's home is his castle."

"It's a hotel room, dear."

"You gettin' smart with me?"

Spike and Ed took this opportunity to bolt from the scene, Ein leaping from the bed covers to follow. Cynthia made one last whimper of protest as her new friend left her life as suddenly as he had entered it. "Bye doggie," she sniffled.

"Go to bed, Cynthia!" her parents screamed in unison before Spike slammed the door shut. Now there were guards coming from everywhere. 

"This way," Spike snapped as he made a break for their room. They ducked into stairwells and squatted behind ice machines. They hid inside elevators and hung from fire escapes. It was like some crazy live action version of Pac-Man, but it looked as though they were going to make it. Spike just about had his hand on the door when Jet and Faye crashed into him. The entire group was wound together in a heap when the guards found them.

"Get up," one of them snarled, placing the barrel of his gun on Spike's upside down forehead.

"Like you would shoot me here," Spike pointed out.

"GET UP!"

They did so reluctantly.

"I believe you had specific orders not to leave your room," the guard said. Spike couldn't really make a case for himself or his roommates so he said nothing. The others found they didn't have much to say either. "You know," the guard continued, exasperated by this whole mess. "I hope for your sake you ain't related. You're no family. You're like some deranged pep squad from Hell."

"Cool," Ed complimented the imagery.

"Get in the room," the guard barked. They did so and the guard slammed the door shut behind them. They then proceeded to actually bolt and padlock the door. "We'll let you out and personally escort you to circle group in the morning," one screamed through the door. "Dr. Lesseps will most likely have a word with you concerning your daughter, as well as your future with the Institute."


	8. Another Pleasant Valley Sunday?

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday?

__

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday  
here in Status Symbol Land  
Mothers complain about how hard life is  
and the kids just don't understand 

As the now captive Bebop heard the guard's boots clod off into the hall, Spike and Jet plopped down despairingly on opposite sides of the bed. They could have taken those clowns so easily but not even cowboys are keen on opening fire where little kids are sleeping. And even if they kicked the shit out of them, like they could have effortlessly done, then what? Every guard on the premises would be alerted to their attempted escape, and they would have _had_ to escape after that. "What was that they said about our "daughter"?" Faye asked them. "What does she have to do with any of this?"

Jet took in a sharp breath. "Kahn told Spike that if we tried anything else, they would take Ed."

Faye looked as though she was punched in the stomach, and the expression on her face was enough to make the boys feel guilty about not letting her in. They didn't mean anything by it. It was just they didn't want Ed to know and Faye wasn't very good in the ol' secret keeping department. "Take Ed where?" Ed said in a dark tone of voice they never heard from her. She was sitting in the corner, Ein curled up comfortably on her lap.

Spike looked at Jet with an almost pleading expression, silently begging him to field this one. Jet sighed. He was always the one to do damage control, to clean up after the kids. "Take you away, Edward," he said softly. "To live with a family. A real one."

Ed cocked her head to one side. "A real family?" Jet nodded. "Forever?" she asked.

"Well…kinda. You would belong to them."

"Ed would belong…" she repeated slowly. She obviously didn't know what to make of this. The prospect of being in a family never came up before. Ever. It gave her slight pause. Would she like that sort of life? Having the same people around for the rest of her existence, feeding you and making you do weird stuff like wear dresses? She wasn't really sure. It didn't sound like something she'd just rush right into but it also didn't sound completely repugnant.

"Do you want that, Ed?" Spike asked, sensing her hesitation.

Ed's saucer eyes clouded with confusion. "Ed doesn't know," she said softly.

"Wait…" Spike said slowly, trying to work this out. "Do you want to have some arrogant little yuppie creeps breathing down your back all your life, pushing their own failed images of success on you and making you make up for all their mistakes? Do you want to have to go play varsity sports cause it'll look good on your college application? Or go to church every Sunday cause it's not enough that _they_ tell you you're going to Hell? Do you want to have to feel inadequate for the rest of your life cause these two little fuck up pricks tell you to?" He wasn't screaming or shouting. His tone was even and calm, like always. He was just summing up every tale of woe he had heard and documented in his own mind, every little snippet of angry frustration that exploded out of these kid's mouths. And he had done this every morning when everyone else assumed he just wasn't paying attention.

"Uh, I think you're leading the witness," Jet grumbled at him.

"I'm not trying to be a wise ass," Spike said sincerely. "I just genuinely want to know. After seeing everything we've seen this weekend, Ed, would you still like to have a family?"

Again, no one had ever, ever asked her that question before. Ed looked at him like she was going to cry for a second before shouting, "ED DOESN'T KNOW!!!!!"

Spike felt as if he had been betrayed. They were willing to give up a bounty to retain Ed's freedom and now it seemed she rather liked the cage. Spike just sighed and shook his head. "Well…then…we can get you that, if you want," he said softly. "Whatever you want to do, it's OK. I mean, we're just roommates, remember?" he said, laughing slightly.

Ed smiled at him reassuringly, realizing that she was stepping on some toes here. She didn't mean to hurt anyone. And she didn't know if that was what she really wanted. She was happy on the Bebop and she had chosen to be with them, rather forcefully in fact. But not once in her life had anyone mentioned the idea of a permanent home. Any place she ever went felt temporary, like she was just hanging out more than actually living there. The idea of being a little more grounded oddly appealed to her, but she didn't know why. She wasn't exactly a grounded gal.

"Well, regardless," Jet spoke up. "If Ed decides that's what she wants, then we'll handle it. I'll go through ISSP and do it properly. I ain't gonna let this little shit lay a hand on her, that's for damn sure."

Everyone nodded in agreement, including Ed.

"Well, OK, then," Jet shrugged. "Think about it," he said to Ed. "And if this is something you want, we'll work on it when we get home." 

Ed just nodded silently and then retreated to the bathroom, Ein in toe. Wherever she went, she hoped they liked dogs. 


	9. No Sonnet

No Sonnet

__

My friend and me

Looking through her red box of memories

Faded I'm sure

But love seems to stick in her veins, you know

Yeah, there's love if you want it.

Don't sound like no sonnet.

Faye was debating whether or not to join Spike on the balcony. She wanted to very badly, not for his company but because she was fixing for a cigarette hardcore. She amused herself sometimes with this silly addiction. She would be sitting somewhere, perfectly content, until all of a sudden and for no reason, she would get fidgety. And she would ignore it for awhile. She'd start biting her nails and a pencil or something. And then she realized that she would often end up holding the pencil like a cigarette, dangling it loosely from her fingers as if it were the 6th appendage. And that imagery would be the final nail in the coffin. She needed one and she needed it now.

Dammit. Why was her partner so damn moody? Well, fuck him. It's not his balcony. There was no reason why she couldn't go out there if she wanted to. She grabbed a butt and practically stormed out the back door, slamming it open with more force than she had intended. She paused, waiting for a reaction. Nothing. 

That was beginning to grate on her too. Just when you think you know a guy. She sighed and pressed her face up against the Plexiglas, looking down over the ledge with a casual death wish curiosity. "Can I ask you something?" Spike suddenly asked from behind her.

Faye tensed at the sound of his voice, mainly because it did not sound hostile in anyway. "Uh…sure."

Spike didn't ask right away. He just stared at his hands for a bit, as if debating if he actually wanted to go through with this now that it was out there. "If you uh…you know. Found your family…"

Faye nearly gasped, and had to actually close her throat for a second to keep herself from coughing on the smoke she just swallowed. 

Spike noticed her shock and seemed slightly amused. "I don't mean to get personal with you," he added quickly. "But I'm just curious about something."

"No, go ahead. I'm pretty damn curious now myself," she admitted.

Spike smiled a bit as he twirled his lighter in his fingers. "If you found them," he continued. "And it turned out they were these drinking, cheating, abusive, mullet sporting little shits," he practically spat. "Would you still be glad you found them? Or would wish you just went on not knowing? You know? Just with the picture in your mind of how they should have been?"

Faye looked at him as if she was seeing him for the first time, amazed he had ever bothered to ask her a question of such depth and introspection. "Well," she said softly. "I would still be happy," she said. And she was pretty sure she meant it.

"Why?" Spike asked, sounding almost frustrated. "What is so damned significant about a bunch of people who happen to have the same last name as you?"

"Because," Faye said a little more defensively than she thought she was going to. "It's nice to think you come from somewhere. It's nice to think that somewhere out there, there's another little freak who'll understand your little freak problems. Someone out there who makes the same weird sound in their sleep or slurps their soup too loudly or can make three loops with their tongue." Faye paused to demonstrate that she could, in fact, make three loops with her tongue, and then sighed. "It's just nice to think that there's a reason why you're so messed up. That there are people somewhere that just by the sheer power of their genes made you this way. It's nice to think the way you are is not an accident."

Spike shook his head, still obviously confused by this whole concept. He hadn't gazed upon the other families here with envy or regret, as a little part of him expected. Just relief. Relief that he was never allowed to know that kind of pain and relief that he had the freedom to break free of situations that bothered him, even if he didn't always choose to. "I guess my real question is," he continued. "Why, if all families are so screwed up, would people keep coming back?"

Faye's entire demeanor changed at that moment. Her slightly fired up posture of a few minutes ago was replaced by a defeated slump against the glass. "Because they'll take you," she said in a voice belying more emotion than Spike had ever thought possible. She stamped her butt out and directed her next statement out somewhere over the horizon. "No matter how badly you treat them or how much you screw up and no matter how many times you've proven to them over and over that you really couldn't give a flying fuck, they take you back. And for no good reason." She turned and opened the sliding door to go back into the room. "And if you can't see the value in that," she said to him over her shoulder, "Than I feel sorry for you." And with that, she closed the door.

Spike didn't go after her. He didn't react. He didn't do much of anything. He just stuck his tongue out at the rising sun in three perfect loops.


	10. Dancing with Mr. Brownstone

Dancing With Mr. Brownstone

__

Now I get up around whenever  
I used to get up on time  
But that old man he's a real muthafucker  
Gonna kick him on down the line.

  


Spike decided at about 7 AM that he was going to do something. He didn't know what exactly. But they had two hours before circle group. Two hours before those goons came knocking on his door ready to hand them their fate. They had never been straight out caught before and it was embarrassing that it was by these guys. Sure, it was due mostly to circumstances beyond their control but still…it sucked. So Spike figured he would try something. Talk to Kahn, shoot at Kahn, throw several punches at Kahn. Whatever struck his fancy when the time came. But first he had to get to Kahn. 

He went out to the balcony and popped the cage off the smoke vent. He pulled himself through the small hole and then took a moment to figure out his next move. He could go up or down. He considered up. He would have to leap onto the overhead balcony. He could easily reach the bottom of it but the sides were made of seamless plastic. There was nothing for him to grip. He would have to make a flying leap way beyond human capabilities. Still, he held it back as Plan B. 

There was also down. He would have to sort of leap down in a bizarre arch to get himself on the balcony below him and not splatted on the pavement. Again, seemed less than reasonable. But what was very reasonable was the notion that falling was always easier than climbing, and so down it was. He walked over to the edge and let the tip of his black boots hang over the top. It was a cool feeling, being that high and that unprotected. But there was no time for reflection, so he turned around and slid the bottom half of his body over the edge and hung there, fingers desperately gripping the smooth edge. He decided the best thing to do would be to let go and then thrust his body forward in an opportune moment. Yeah, that's right. Like falling off a log.

He took a breath and closed his eyes for a moment before he let go. He saw the room drop before him through the glass and thought he might now know what Alice was feeling when she went down that rabbit hole. He contracted his body for a second and then thrust it out, slamming his torso roughly on the balcony below. There was little time to celebrate, however, since he immediately began to slide off the ledge. He dug his fingernails into…nothing, really. It was Plexiglas. But he still dug for all he was worth as he slammed the rubber soles of his boots into the glass. The boots provided enough resistance for him to take a breath and hoist himself up on the roof of the terrace. A white bird suddenly landed next to him, cocking its head in curiosity at the very un-bird like creature currently perched in its spot. Spike cocked his head back. "Go ask Alice," Spike suggested, and the bird it seemed, took his advice. 

Spike kicked the grate of the vent in and squeezed himself inside. Everyone appeared to be sleeping, and if they weren't, they would have surely noticed the tall skinny guy hanging out in their balcony. He opened the slide door, crept across the room and out the front into the hall. Easy enough. 

Now what? He figured he'd just go to Kahn's office. That was a good a place to start as any. He crept along the hallways as he had done so many times on this trip, thinking how routine this was all becoming. He squeezed himself quickly behind a vending machine as a guard went by. He watched as the figure slowly made his way down the hall and turned the corner. The coast looked clear enough, but just as he was about to slide out the same way he had came, he heard a gun click.

If there were room enough between the machine and the wall for him to turn his head and look, he would have. But since there wasn't, he simply said, "Yes?" 

"What the hell do you think your doing?" Faye's voiced cracked behind him like a whip.

"You wanna let me out here? I'm getting a huge crick in my neck," he asked her.

"Poor baby," she grunted as she shoved him out into the hall. "Whatever happened to letting this one go?"

"This Kahn guy is getting on my nerves, that's all. How did you get out of the room anyway?"

"Out the balcony," she said in a "duh" tone of voice.

Spike looked at her incredulously. Somehow, he couldn't see Faye making the flying leap from one balcony to the other. She simply wasn't aerodynamic. That said, the girl did possess a certain buoyancy that would make her good to have in a ship wreck.

"We had a rope," she snapped. Then added, as if she could read his mind, "Ass."

"Hmm," Spike mused, scratching his head. A rope would have been helpful. "So have you just come to fetch me or are you taking justice into your own hands?"

"Little bit of column A…" she said as she leaned against the soda machine. "I'm serious about this being my project you know. I finish what I start. Sometimes. Besides, I have a few choice words for Kahn myself. I mean, the fucking nerve of this guy!" she seethed. "Where's Jet, anyway?"

Spike looked at her cock-eyed. "He isn't in the room?"

"No," Faye replied, slight concern playing in her voice. "I figured you two went out together."

"Noooo," he drew the word out a bit. Now that he thought about it, he wasn't entirely sure Jet was in the room when he left. He never bothered to check.

At that moment they heard what sounded like a good deal of commotion coming from the stair well. The two of them squeezed behind the soda machine again, much to Faye's chagrin. It wasn't really an ideal hiding place for a full figured gal. Spike watched as Jet himself bolted out of the stairwell and dove inside the ice machine. The guards were a couple whole minutes behind him, but they were walking casually, as if Jet saw them coming before they realized he was there. They clopped right by the machines without giving it a second glance. Faye and Spike emerged from their hiding spot and waited expectantly for their partner. A few seconds later, Jet poked his head out the door, looked both ways, and attempted to stealthily make it back to the stairwell.

"What the fuck, Jet?" Spike called out. Jet jumped six feet in the air and turned to see the two of them staring at him.

"What the hell are you guys doing here?"

"Getting the bounty," Faye replied. "And you?"

"Same," he sniffed.

"I thought we were all for playing it safe. Keeping a low profile and the like," Spike pointed out.

"Yeah…well. This guy is really pissing me off. Locking us in the room like animals. Fuck that." Jet grumbled.

Spike had to laugh. "You know, I expect this kind of behavior from me. But frankly, I am hurt and disappointed by the rest of you."

"Wait…" Jet said suddenly. "So if all of us are down here, then that means Ed…"

All of them looked at each other with identical expressions, and then bolted up the stairs back to their rooms. As they stumbled over each other into the hallway, they saw the door was wide open. Shit. Jet was the first one in. Ed was just gone. No note, no anything. But it did look like she put up a bit of a fight. A table was knocked over and the curtains were ripped and they could hear Ein whimpering from the bathroom. Spike opened the door and saw the dog curled up in the corner, his front leg bent at an impossible angle. He wagged his tail slightly when he saw the bounty hunter. "That's it," Spike said darkly, loading his gun. "You can embarrass me, shoot me, get me hopped up on coke and lock me in a hotel room. But you just don't fuck with a man's dog."

The guards were beginning to get nervous. They hadn't expected all three of them to escape, and it was sort of ridiculous that they hadn't been able to find them yet. It wasn't entirely their fault, though. They weren't detectives or anything. They were a brute squad. All they ever did previously was break people's fingers and hold their heads in the toilet until they paid. All of this hotel security stuff was new to them, and this was the busiest they've been since they started this whole operation. The biggest of the guards, Harry, looked down at his hand where the girl had bit him. That was no little girl. He didn't know what it was but it was certainly not a 13-year-old girl. He didn't know Kahn's plans for her either but as far as he was concerned, they should give her to the Ganymede Zoo. 

Kahn was obviously not pleased with them when they reported the other ones were out and about somewhere in the Institute. Harry felt bad about that too. He didn't have a reputable line of work but he still took pride in it. Anything worth doing was worth doing well, he always thought. But they had been screwing up ever since that little Brownstone shit and his posse came in here. What did they want, anyway? Harry was jarred quite violently out of his thoughts by the unpleasant sensation of someone's boot bashing in his teeth. He slammed back against the wall and slunk down it, just at the boot dug into the soft middle of his abdomen. Damn, he hated skinny people. They were so quick. Like ferrets or something. He looked up only to face the barrel of a gun. He sighed as he noticed the others of his group were in similar situations. God. They were being held up by a string bean, a dude with one arm and a woman. This was so humiliating.

"Where's the kid?" Jet asked one roughly.

"I have no clue," he sputtered back.

"All right. Where's Kahn?" Spike tried again.

Harry's eyes widened at the mention of his boss' actual name. _Who where these guys? _"I dunno!" he squealed.

Spike yawned and nonchalantly placed the gun in his hostage's mouth. "I'm getting bored with this," he intoned.

Harry panicked and tried to speak, but found it difficult in his current situation. He tried to communicate that to his captor. "The gun!" he said, but it sounded more like, "Mah Uuun!"

"Make due," Spike clicked the weapon, and the noise chattered off his teeth.

"Downstairs!" Faye's hostage suddenly cried out, much to the dismay of the other guards. Harry and the others grunted their disapproval. "Kahn's in the warehouse. I don't know about the kid."

The other guards glared at him, obviously disappointed by his lack of professionalism. "I'm sorry!" he whined in his defense. "I hate blood."

Faye rolled her eyes and conked the guy over the head with the butt of her gun. Her partners followed suit and they stood up to face the rather large gaggle of slack-jawed on-lookers that had gathered around them. Like these people had never seen a fist fight before. People probably ran around with guns every Thanksgiving at their houses. "Move along," Faye snapped, shooing them away casually with her Glock. Everyone immediately shuffled back into their rooms and closed the doors.

"What was that about not drawing attention to ourselves?" Spike grumbled.

Jet shook his head as he took off down the hall. "Come on!"

They skidded into the kitchen and paused as they saw about six men, much more professional looking than the two-bit rent a cops they had patrolling the halls. Each of them had a very large semi-automatic weapon pointed directly at them. "Who are you?" one of them asked. That seemed to be the question of the hour. 

"We're just your average middle class family scraping to get by," Spike replied.

"Impossible," one of them spat, taking his meaning. "There's been no bounty put on Kahn's head."

"When the going gets tough, the tough get their own work," Jet shot back. "Where's the kid?"

"She's no longer your concern."

Jet's eyes narrowed as he stepped closer to them. "The hell she isn't," he growled fiercely. 

"So what? If we give you the kid, you'll walk?" one of the men asked. That was obviously the intention all along.

"Oh, the time for walking is long gone," Jet replied.

That said, the men immediately opened fire and the three of them dove behind a steel cabinet. Dozens of containers shattered over their head, raining broken glass and various condiments upon them. Faye shrieked as about 200 Spanish olives thudded grotesquely down her shirt. She dashed across the room, shooting over the counter all the way. She kicked one of the steel refrigerator doors open, simultaneously taking out a goon and deflecting a few shots as she crouched behind it. In the meantime, Spike had slid over the counter top and brought his boot directly into a gunman's jaw. As he landed, he brought around his other foot to take out the man behind him while he shot a few rounds into the others. Jet was behaving very much like a cop, hiding behind various structures in the kitchen, emerging only to take a shot. The whole scene was both very gruesome and very artistic, with splatters of red, yellow and white from the food products they assassinated splashing against the stark steel walls. Turkeys and rib roasts exploded like clay pigeons and watermelons burst with grizzly gusto on the ceiling. When it was all over, the three cowboys looked like they picked a fight with the Super Stop and Shop and lost. They took a moment to catch their breath before making their way to the meat locker. Someone had left the door open. It seemed Kahn was expecting them.

Cautiously, they made their way down the corridor. When they got to the warehouse, Joe Kahn was waiting. His eyes were shining like cats in the faint sunlight. He didn't look like an elf anymore. More like some crazy, murderous troll. Not that a crazy, murderous troll was that much more intimidating. The thing about bookies is that they are only as powerful as the numbers they hold. When the odds start to tip out of their favor, it's like someone pulled the curtain off the Great and Powerful Oz. "Give it up, Kahn," Jet said, mainly for good measure. Hey, he might give it up. You never know.

"How the hell did you know?!?" he screamed at them, his hand shaking. "Nobody knows."

"I'm surprised you don't recognize me," Faye said. "A good bookie never forgets a face. Especially one that owes him money." 

The little man screwed his face up at her and then stared at her with astonishment. "Faye Valentine?" he gawked. "I've been had by Faye Valentine?"

"Yeah," Faye grumbled. "I get that a lot."

Kahn's eyes grew very dark in that moment, and he began firing wildly in her general direction. Both Spike and Jet almost made a move to fire back, help her out…something. But it became painfully obvious in the first half second that she didn't need it. 

Faye stood perfectly still, not even flinching as the bullets whizzed all around her. They slammed into the boxes, bounced off the walls, and even came close to hitting one of her comrades, but not a single one hit her. It was a known fact in the underground that those who were horrible shots became bookies. Bookies hired other, less intelligent people to do the shooting for them. When his gun started clicking pathetically in despair, he lowered it and stood staring at them, panting wildly. Spike and Jet had no idea what to make of this. They weren't quite sure whether to laugh or be seriously disturbed. "You finished?" Faye snapped in a bored kind of voice.

Kahn did not respond, so Faye took the opportunity to shoot him in the leg. She rolled her eyes as she turned to face her partners. "That guy never could hit the broadside of a barn," she yawned.

Spike and Jet looked briefly around the room, and then sidestepped as a shot up crate of drugs toppled from the pile and landed beside them with a poof. "Obviously," Spike whistled. 

"DROP YOUR WEAPONS!" a voice screamed from above as the lights snapped on. The catwalk was suddenly cluttered with ISSP agents.

The cowboys shrugged agreeably and tossed their guns to the floor while Kahn wept. Openly wept. Wept for the perfectness of his plan and how unfair it was that he was stopped rather haphazardly, and by two bit bounty hunters. One who owed him money, no less. No one was really surprised by his disgusting lack of control. It was a well-known fact that a bookie was usually first to break down in a crisis. 

Jay Nadek suddenly emerged from the crowd, which parted rather dramatically for him, and pointed his weapon at Teflon Kahn. "You have the right to remain silent," he could all but keep from grinning.

Spike turned to Jet with an amused expression. So that's what Jet was up to this morning. Jet only shrugged. "Come on. You know we had to let the kid have his moment," he smiled.

Ed was fine. What the eventual plans were for her were uncertain, but the immediate action was to simply get her out of the way. "Out of the way" came in the form of one-on-one counseling with Dr. Harlow. Harlow herself had no idea what was going on. Lesseps had just bust into her office carrying the screaming child and told her to evaluate her for placement. She almost shit herself when about 12 ISSP agents came barging into her office, screaming their heads off and brandishing very large weapons. At the time they entered the room, Ed had herself wrapped around Harlow's head in an attempt to liberate the Jolly Ranchers she had from her pocket. 

Ed did not seem fazed. "Jet Person?" she asked cheerily.

"Yeah, we're right here, Ed," Jet's voice came from somewhere behind the crowd. 

"Jet Person!" she cried and then barreled through the wall of agents, tackling Jet to the ground.

"Ed's been talking to Doctor Person and Doctor Person was telling Ed all about families and how Ed has to do chores, and clean the bathroom and go to school and Ed is thinking that Ed doesn't want to do all that stuff anyway and also Ed has to wear shoes all the time and those mean people who came in the room weren't very nice to Ed so Ed bit them and then Ein bit them too but they kicked Ein which made Ed madder so Ed kicked them back and he started crying cause Ed got him in his special place and Doctor Person said that Ed had Attention…Def-ic-it Dis-order but Ed does not know what that is but Ed is getting Ritalin! Want some?" 

Jet took a moment to wrap his brain around that sentence and then asked, "So in other words, Ed is staying on Bebop-Bebop?"

"Yep! Yep! Ed stays on Bebop-Bebop!!!"

"I'm so glad. Now get off me."

Harlow in the meantime was getting herself arrested. Spike and Faye kept jumping up and down behind the slew of agents in an attempt to see the action. They were pretty sure Harlow really had no idea that all this was a front. But who were they to stand in the way of justice? The courts'll figure it out. Spike waved, evil grin plastered across his face, as the good doctor was whisked away to a waiting squad car. Spike even went as far as to tap on the car window.

"You," she growled at him. "I knew something was up with you people. What are you? What did you tell them?"

"I didn't tell them anything," he said. "I'm just here to get the help I so desperately need."

"Oh, yeah sure," she spat, obviously losing it. "You want help like I want a hole in my head."

"Ah-ah," Spike scolded, waving his finger in the air. "Sarcasm is the refuge of the weak." He banged on her car door as it sped off. She'd probably be out of there in a few hours but still…it was one of the more satisfying moments of Spike's life.


	11. Friends

Friends

__

Had a friend, she once told me:

"You got love, you ain't lonely,"   
Now she's gone and left me only 

Looking for what I knew. 

So anytime somebody needs you

Don't let them down, although it grieves you,   
Some day you'll need someone like they do

Looking for what you knew.   


  


Spike and Faye were stretched out on the roof of the animal hospital waiting for Ein, pondering life, the universe and everything. Faye in particular was gazing at the little billows of smoke she and her comrade produced and imagining little shapes in them. At one point, she dragged her cigarette through the air in an attempt to write her name. It sort of worked. She decided to try Spike's name.

"Hey," he grumbled. "Keep to your own name."

Faye blushed a bit, though no one could tell in the dark. "I didn't think you could tell what I was doing."

"I got nothing else to stare at," he sighed, but not before writing "shrew" in the night sky, which Faye quickly followed up with "lunkhead," though the word was admittedly a little long to be writing with smoke.

"How much is this gonna cost us?" Faye asked suddenly.

Spike made a sort of groaning sound as he stretched his body out further on the pavement. "A lot," he said. "Vet's are expensive."

Faye huffed. "Over a dog," she mused. 

"He's a good dog," Spike said in his defense, though his voice didn't sound the least bit defensive.

"Yeah…I guess a dog who can answer the phone fits into the category of good dog," she admitted. "It's just kinda weird, I guess. All of us hanging out, waiting to pick our pet up from the doctor. It's so…domestic."

"Yeah. I'm freaked by that too," Spike said in a rare moment of candor. "This whole bounty has kinda freaked me out."

"Yeah, I've noticed," Faye smiled before suddenly rolling on her side. "You know…you guys are the only family I've got," she said softly.

"Faye, don't start," Spike closed his eyes. 

"Shut up a second," she snapped. "I'm serious. Before I met you guys my life was nothing. And now it's…well. It's still nothing."

Spike chuckled softly.

"But I guess being nothing in good company is better than being nothing by yourself," she added.

Spike finally rolled over so they were facing each other. "Faye, why are you saying this stuff all of a sudden? Are you dying or something?"

"No," she said indignantly. "I just…well. You shouldn't have to wait till you're dying to tell someone you like having them around," she said shortly and then rolled over so she was gazing at the stars again. She didn't really care if Spike was receptive or not. She just felt like she wanted to say it. Have one moment of sincerity in their entire fucking relationship before one of them ran off and got themselves killed. It was exhausting to be so guarded all the time, and it had been a long week. She suddenly noticed that Spike hadn't stopped staring at her. He was still on his side, long face propped up on his huge hand. "What?" she asked, only her eyes rolling sideways to meet his gaze.

Spike just smirked and then flipped over on his own back. They stared at the stars a little more, each immersed in their own thoughts. Then Faye noticed Spike was writing again with his cigarette. She squinted at it until she could make out the word. 

Ditto.

That's what he wrote. Faye, maintaining true to the nature of their friendship in spite of this momentary lapse, pretended she didn't see it. And Spike behaved as if he didn't write it to begin with. He just shifted over lazily and yawned, "What time is it?"

"I dunno. I'm thinking it's gotta be after 2."

Spike stubbed out the last of his butt before dragging himself to a standing position. "We should check on the others."

"Yeah, we wouldn't want to be late for curfew," she said mockingly.

"Suck it, Faye."

"In your dreams, cowboy."


	12. Epilogue

Epilogue

__

What do I do when my love is away?

Does it worry you to be alone?

How do I feel at the end of the day?

Are you sad cause your on your own?

Ein wished he were dead. Death was certainly preferable to the big plastic cone that was currently around his neck. He couldn't see anything that wasn't directly in front of him. And if he had owners that didn't think it was hilarious to let him bang his cone into doorways and fire hydrants as he limped along, maybe it wouldn't be so bad.

But to be perfectly honest, all five creatures had never been so happy to see the Bebop. Ed let out a whoop of joy as she flew to the hatch, hanging on the door until Jet opened it. Faye, however, made a sharp left towards the Redtail. "Where ya' going, Faye?" Jet asked gruffly as Spike blew by him.

"You said quite plainly that if I didn't drop the case, there wouldn't be a place for me when I got back," she said seriously. 

Jet rolled his eyes. "Are you getting your ass on this ship or not, woman?"

Faye smiled for a moment, and the bolted into the Bebop like a bat out of hell. "Dibs on the shower!" she screamed as she shoved an already half-naked Spike out of the way.

Spike regained his balanced and then began beating on the door. "Screw that! I had it first!"

"Then why am I in the shower and you're out on your ass?" she called out, turning the water on.

"FAYE!!!"

Jet sighed as he opened up their pantry. Hmmm…beef or chicken Ramen? Life is full of important choices. He was starving, and he knew his crew would be, so he made both. Bicken Ramen. Or maybe Cheef. He hadn't decided. He watched in some amusement as Spike ran to the back and flushed the toilet, making Faye cry out in pain and defeat. He emerged from the bathroom with a triumphant grin. "How old are you?" Jet asked him.

"27 going on 12," he replied, smiling. "What's for dinner?"

"Ramen. Bicken flavor."

Spike nodded. "Excellent." He then went off to join Ed and her torturing of the dog. He normally refrained from such activities but this cone thing added another element that intrigued him.

Jet shook his head, stupid grin on his face. It occurred to him in that moment that he didn't really like a single person on his ship. He wouldn't really single out any of them to hang out with, even Spike. They weren't really his buddies. They weren't his pals. They were something else entirely. 

And they would fight, and walk out on each other, and be banned from the ship. They would bitch and moan and lament the day they met the others. But when they were quite through with the theatrics, and after the world had kicked their asses around the block a few times, they'd come back. And he would always let them. They all would. Did that make them family? Eh. Maybe.

Maybe family was just the people who were left when you figured out you didn't fit anywhere else. Maybe a family was really a bunch of people who only fit together by default. And he was cool with that. After all, it's only natural that freaks flock together.

__

NAH, I GET BY WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS

Much thanks going out to the Beatles, John Lennon, Guns and Roses, Memphis Jug Band, NOFX, Marilyn Manson, They Might Be Giants, The Monkees, The Verve, Guns and Roses again, Led Zeppelin and Joe Cocker for rocking so damned hard. (And yes, I know the Beatles _wrote_ With A Little Help From My Friends but Joe Cocker fucking _owns_ it. Wonder Years forever!)

And as always, thank you for reading.

Agent Orange out.


End file.
